Twenty-seven years as an engineering officer in the US Air Force provided Marvin Smith with the ideal background for his current role at the Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center.
As the facilities department director, Smith oversees all physical plant activities for the Academic Health Center and the College of Medicine. As the senior engineer and physical plant professional for the 550-acre campus’s 4.3 million square feet of building space, he’s responsible for in-house and contract facility maintenance, grounds maintenance, design and construction, the central heating and cooling plants, waste processing, and environmental, occupational, and fire safety programs.
Penn State Hershey has recently undertaken several large construction projects that Smith’s team manages. Most notable is the new data center, the University Technology Center.
“The existing facility was not flexible or expandable enough to meet the growing needs of an academic medical center for computing capacity in research, general computing, and business continuity,” Smith says. “Expansion was not an option due to the physical limitations of the site and building. The new data center will ensure that server and storage capacity will not be a barrier to the business for many years to come.”
Smith points out that the building was designed so the original footprint will support future expansion in several phases.
“Within the original footprint, the initial 1 MW capacity can be increased to 2 MW by completing the buildout of planned air handling units and electrical generators, transformers, and associated gear,” he says. “The final buildout will support a planned expansion within the white space of increased density computing to a total of 3 MW. The phased approach of using shell space and increasing the white space rack density [number of servers] allows expansion without requiring significant construction interference to the operating facility.”
University Technology Center
Size: 45,000 square feet
Cost: $54 million
Construction timeline: Ground broken January 2015; completion scheduled for 2016
Migration info: Completion of IT system migration expected March 2017
Team: Roughly 300
people involved
Highlights: The anticipated annualized average PUE* of approximately 1.2 improves on the energy efficiency of a typical modern data center by 50–60 percent
*Power Usage Effectiveness
Among the innovative features of the data center are indirect evaporative cooling units on the rooftop. These units provide cooling using only outside air and water sprays for 85 percent of the year. Features adopted to increase energy efficiency of the building range from high-performance building envelopes to high-efficiency, uninterrupted power supplies—so that if commercial power goes out, the computers remain online. Sustainability also remains an important feature. Among the sustainability measures incorporated into the design are rain gardens for storm water management, native landscaping with low maintenance requirements, reduced water consumption fixtures, and a reflective roof surface to reduce facility heat gain.
In addition to the data center, Smith also oversaw renovation of emergency department space for treating pediatric patients.
“We converted an existing space with eight treatment rooms and five private consultation areas into 12 identical treatment rooms,” he says, and adds that the work was done in phases so that no more than three beds were out of service at any one time. On the agenda for 2016 is designing an expansion of the emergency department. The plan is to increase capacity by adding treatment spaces and realigning existing spaces for improved patient and provider flow.
If that weren’t enough, there’s also a $4.1 million steam line system update among the major projects on Smith’s docket.
“We rely on steam for all our heating, hot water, and sterilization needs,” he says. “The current system is approaching maximum capacity. The goal is to provide redundancy in our high-pressure steam distribution system to our hospital and college by creating a system that is double-fed and results in a loop-type distribution . . . The loop configuration allows us to continue to deliver steam to all ‘downstream’ locations during scheduled maintenance or during an emergency event, such as a pipe leak.”
Pediatric Emergency Department
Cost: $3 million
Stages: Six months of planning and design, and eight months of renovations, in multiple phases
Challenge: The reduction of spaces used for support required many operational changes
The system update will equalize the distribution load and provide opportunities for future growth. As of press time, the project was scheduled to wrap in May 2016.
Renovations will also soon begin on the George T. Harrell Health Sciences Library at Penn State College of Medicine, which Smith says is designed with students and faculty in mind to encourage collaboration and innovation. Interactive technology will be incorporated throughout, such as the One Button Studio, which will allow users to create high-quality videos without any previous video production experience.
“You need to only bring your flash drive and push a single button,” Smith says.
The Innovation Technology Sandbox will provide access to evolving technologies such as 3-D printing. High-end work stations will have proprietary software for training and experimentation, and an array of wall-hung screens for visualization. It is anticipated that the technology available will evolve over time.
Two other noteworthy projects underway are the Combined Heat and Power Plant and Central Plant Chilled Water Optimization.
“Notionally, this plant would be a natural gas-fired combustion turbine engine creating approximately 6 MW of electricity,” Smith says. “Along with the combustion turbine, a waste heat recovery boiler will be installed to maximize the efficiency of the plant. These systems will provide the campus with approximately 25 percent of its peak electrical demand and 45 percent of its annual electrical usage at a lower cost than buying it from the utility market.”
“We are fortunate to have a strong senior leadership commitment to reinvestment in our physical plant. And I enjoy being part of the dedicated, passionate facilities team.”
Marvin Smith, Facilities Director
The cogeneration system will also meet 61 percent of the campus’s thermal (steam) requirements with the waste heat available from the electrical production. As a result, Smith says carbon dioxide emissions will be reduced by 21,423 tons per year. The estimated cost is approximately $19 million and, at press time, the project was scheduled to wrap in late 2017. It is anticipated that the plant will provide $2.9 million in annual savings.
The goal of the optimization project is to make production more energy efficient through the use of variable frequency drives on all aspects of chilled water production. The production process will be computerized using Optimum Energy’s OptiCX Platform, which will analyze chilled water demands and efficiently manage the facility’s 12 chillers. These chillers will provide 14,000 tons of cooling, and the system will be online for the 2016 cooling season, saving approximately $250,000 annually.
Other projects planned for 2016 include improving wayfinding around the campus (through better use of symbols, signage, and employee training) and beautifying the grounds while creating a sustainable, environmentally friendly campus. Some lawn areas will become lower maintenance through the use of meadow grass and wildflowers. More native plants that have little environmental impact will be employed, and Smith says safety concerns also will be addressed.
“For example, greenery that does not need frequent mowing or maintenance is being planted on steep slopes to reduce staff exposure to possible injury from mowing,” he says. “We are fortunate to have a strong senior leadership commitment to reinvestment in our physical plant. And I enjoy being part of the dedicated, passionate facilities
team.”
